From Platform to Open Cooperativism

and I would love to get out from the monetary system as well, (like you), but the change has to come in a peer level.... And that it is in the way and the reason we decide every purchase we do... (As I said it before.... for me we are ¨trading¨ most of our time .. when we work we are selling our time and we eat and dress up every day with product we buy, so the change has to be at this level......)...

sorry for a new intervention, but when I say to gat out from the monetary system, I mean the current ¨paper coin¨ system, and achieve a ¨very simple¨ blockchain virtual money system that would enable transactions, with the use of prices ( agreement of values).

To imagine a society without any trading it would means to me ...so what do I do now????? ( it means I can not imaging the route that would take us there.... ).... and even the common future vision is very important, the ¨common route¨ has to be also very clear if we want to really go forward....

Hi Miguel @miguelnovik I like it when you say:

¨very simple¨ blockchain virtual money system

My questions, simple to ask but I imagine hard to answer:
1. is there any current design or specification for a "very simple" system?
2. would it avoid the difficulties many people have with blockchain technology?

To me, this would be a great opportunity to use a consensus harmonization / standardization process so that we (all?) could arrive at a solution we could live and work with.

Thanks

Strypey
thanks for answer.

It seems to be that we understand the price and the market itself in a different way.
But remember that we want to achieve this ¨New Ecosystem of Value creation ¨ just presented... and we want to develop mechanisms to enable so...

I will answer the question you did based in the project here in Israel.... but before let me notice that our visions may be very closed.... (this is very important, because if we can not assure and clarify common future visions,...we will not get ¨to a common place ¨),

You said:
...¨But in the networked era, we are awash with far more nuanced forms of information than pricing. If businesses want to know what people want and need and will pay for, its cheap and easy now to ask us directly, or just listen to the requests we make and the criteria we specify in our online discourse.¨

Of course I agree with a Peer to Peer vision as you will see in my answers below, but in my opinion that does not invalidate the price as an agreement of value... (the problem is that in a ¨maximum profit logic¨, the price does not give you too much ¨real ¨information about the real value of each product, which it is the commercial dynamic that I want to gate off).. (you said that the price give you information...)

...It is a fact that all of we give a contribution to society (and into the production system), and all of we receive something back from it..

The wise take only what they need and give as much as they can..
But many people think and believe that they deserve a lot.... and that their contribution is very high....

Also in our ¨dream market¨ with out any kind of manipulation, with open knowledge companies that share recipes, the producer could believe that his contribution (the product or service that he provide) is very high...

The price is the agreement for these trade off in every transaction we make...

Now your questions:

• What mechanisms will open cooperatives depend on to generate and gather information about what people want and need? ....Each time I buy in my supermarket cooperative I gave my name and all the purchase information get into the POS system... This is information of our needs. This is free information available for suppliers.. (We are trying to gather with other coops and the kibutz movement).
• What mechanisms will open cooperatives use to coordinate production and distribution, according to this information? The suppliers should be able to load information in our open coop web and they should prove us how they are using the information, that we are providing to them, to better coordinate the production with ¨other competitors ¨. They should be able to prove us how they are developing the common knowledge, and the ¨think global and produce locally ¨. If they do it properly, for sure we will see the benefits.... ..The suppliers will do it if they get our commitment as a customers...

As I said before, One important concrete prove:
The companies should have open accounting with public Maximum Wage and Maximum profit.. Each company (or person) has his own definition, but have to publish it.

We will encourage to the suppliers to become ¨generative ¨ and to coordinate production because we will prefer to buy from them and we will provide them all our consumption information (and even more information regarding the current technology that allow easily to be peer connected).

• What mechanisms will open cooperatives use to supply people with information about what is available, which products and services best fit their wants and needs, and why? ..Our open web should receive our consumption information (from our POS) and be able like a data warehouse (available for suppliers) and our web should also receive the relevant information from suppliers that want to become generative and get connected with the members of our coops and kibutzim ...

.In our web it should be the relevant information, (¨relevant¨ will depend of each community or person).

.ethicalconsumer.org could be a good example of how you can tabulate information, and also you can suit it regarding the issues you care more...

But in our project the suppliers would load the information in our web, where you could compare it with other products and suppliers in a tabulated way..

Also the way how they measure the variables should be share and published, so other companies would do it the same way and we could compare apples with apples...

Of course at the beginning we have received great resistance from the companies, and we do not push them to show info, but in the way they see that the customers give their commitment and prefer to buy from companies that are sharing information (knowledge), many companies will do the same...

..We really believe that having clear our monthly needs (mainly from our POS) and finding the better products and services ¨recipes ¨ to satisfy them connected with suppliers, they will be willing to develop Commons-Based Peer Production and, even more, we believe that we will be able get out from scarcity feeling...

Can you see that this project enables a commercial peer to peer relationship??? (from the customers that buy in the coops to suppliers that load info in our Open web (we have a web page but it is not a data warehouse yet..)

Can you see that this project enables a commercial relationship based in information, avoiding marketing expenses???? (even there is people that want to pay marketing and receive ¨status¨, in general the members of our coops do not need it and sharing information with them it will not be necessary at all..)..

The price in this dynamic, with open recipes (open knowledge) should show exactly where it goes every cents we pay.... but it is ¨ a value agreement.¨..

Many people (even in my coop) still see this project like ¨too capitalistic ¨.... not most, but many....
So, If one of you , with peer to peer common ideas also see it ¨too capitalistic..¨, please give a call or voice message to whatsup +972 584881158

Strypey if you would like to explain me how could you avoid the price I would really thank you a voice message or a whats up call...

Best..

Thanks for the information on your project in Israel, very interesting. Is there a link you can provide for more info? I'm particularly interested in what is the stage of implementation and how it is going.

I still need to sit down and catch up with the rest of this thread, but just quickly...

@miguelnovik

"It seems to be that we understand the price and the market itself in a different way."

Indeed. When I talk about markets and pricing, I'm responding to the information theory of the classical liberal economists, specifically the theory that markets and pricing are the only efficient way of establishing what people want, where they want it, how much they want it, and so on. I think this was a very sensible theory to put forward in Adam Smith's time, and in fact it remained defensible right through the end of the 1980s. It strikes me as an odd coincidence that this liberal theory was elevated to the status of pseudo-religious dogma among neo-liberals and neo-classical economists, at about the same time that the emergence of the net thoroughly debunked it.

Anyway, I'm not saying that a future economy will be one without markets, prices, or money, any more than the industrial economy was one without states, religions, or doctrine. Just that the role of these elements, and their relative power and importance within the society, is changing as radically as it did during the industrial transition (what people lazily call the "industrial revolution" even though it wasn't really).

Lynn

It would be wonderful if any of you could replicate this project in the communities near you .... We could support each other and find synergies.

I promise you that on Saturday night I will send you a complete detail of the steps and targets that we are facing.

In the meantime you can see the web page:

Community Information Market is the future vision of the project.
http://cimarket.webnode.es/

But since last January I decided not focus any more in develop ¨a whole huge project¨ and focus on developing and implement some ideas....

And therefore, I decided to be more active inside the little supermarket cooperative that I am member since almost 2 years.

www.http://www.beshutaf.org/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/beshutaf.members/

This pages are in hebrew but with google translate you can get an idea.... Any way it is a legal cooperative since 5 years ago, with more or less 150 active members. We have only one person that receive salary. The coop is a little ¨copy¨ of the coop supermarket in Slope Park brooklyn, NY.

The main idea of the whole project: ¨ If a good number of people decided to prefer to buy to companies that prove to be ¨Generatives¨ (Marjorie Kelly) , we would have a ¨Generative Society¨.

One year ago I would have said ¨companies oriented to ¨the common Good¨ (more influenced by Christian Felber and the balance rate that they have ).

The journey has been intense, I have connected many social organizations, ongs, the star up industry (in Israel is strong), the ministry of economy (cooperatives section). organizations that helps and gather new immigrants etc etc etc etc... With all of those I have a story about the way they understood the project. :)

..... But the important thing are the steps and targets that we are facing within the coop....

thanks,

Miguel

Miguel, thank you! I will read all of it with interest!

Don't worry about rushing, I'm busy through Monday anyway.... :)

Then I take another day...:)

Before to explain the project, I want to express the great resistance that sometimes I feel I receive not only in this forum, but also with many people (organizations) with whom I have had contact.

For instance, when I speak in my coop that I want to build a ¨common – based peer to peer society¨, I can feel that it scare them….. Also, when I talk about prices, trading and private property, I feel there is an incomprehension on the part of you.

Don´t you think that we can express our individuality and at the same time ¨try to understand the whole life¨???

Don´t you think that we can have our own privacy (and our private space), and at the same time be aware and respectful of the common knowledge and resources ... (which we must inevitably learn to share) ???

I hope you will understand (and visualize) that this project aims to achieve so…

The questions that Strypey did were really good (above) . It is so sad that he, and we, could not continue going deeper…. Because now I may be repeating some ideas that I have already exposed answering his questions.

( If we would have gone deeper, getting a better understanding of the questions and the answers, I would probably achieve a better way to expose it and also, maybe, identify the ¨contradictions¨ that the project have in order to achieve the "New Ecosystem of Value creation", which this thread proposes .)..

Again. I would love that someone can replicate this project in other places and I really would appreciate a deeper discussions according a concreate ¨common target…¨.

*For Free, I am not ¨selling¨ the idea …….open knowledge, *

The current work::

Last September a group of 4 members of Beshutaf Coop created a workshop called ¨Behind the product¨ and started studying some suppliers and product that we currently buy at the coop and published in googledoc opened to all member.
I joined them last January..
This group made a survey to know what are the issues that the members most care. (51 people answered and the 2 most important issues for the members are workers right and ecological issues).

Until here …..we only have a group of people that belong to a cooperative supermarket who are willing to volunteer for this cooperative to function. At the same time we have an initiative that is collecting information from the products and suppliers we have, so that, members can choose better what they are buying….

Now we have to go further…….
Why ????

Why do we want to increase the level of the information from products and suppliers that these members are developing and sharing within the coop????

Because enable us to choose to buy to those companies/ products that better reach our targets us a cooperative. (at the web of our coop Beshutaf are social justice, community and reasonable prices).

If we prefer to buy, based on ¨ apple to apple ¨ comparative information, from companies that demonstrate that they meet these same objectives, and we bring together many members (even if they are in other cities and in other cooperatives or organizations), we will be creating a real social change.

What does it means ¨go further¨…????

Next Steps:
(attached you will also find a more detailed description of what do we want to achieve through these 4 steps... )

1.- Establish alliances with least 10 supermarket cooperatives, or social organization, that are willing to use and share our database information and allow us to get agreements with suppliers. (I also have been in contact with the kibutz movements that usually have small stores inside them).

2.- Find suppliers that would sign the ¨ Letter for learning process agreement¨.
*…..To understand this letter as a ¨Learning ¨ process agreement is very important if you want to understand the project.. *
(Attached in pptx you will find the letter in my ¨basic¨ english, which it has to be presented in Hebrew to the suppliers, so four weeks ago one person took the responsibility to translate it to hebrew.......Last week he told me that he does not have time to really get involved in this project.....)

3.- Merge the information given by suppliers and the consumption results from the store partners in a open web.
.....You have to understand that we already have all the sales information that the coop do to each member… to go further on this, you have to imagine a data warehouse intelligence that any bit retailer have, (you can review http://www.nielsen.com/ ). Of course in our project all our POS information is open…

In the other hand the suppliers will load information about themselves and their products… To imagine this you can see:
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/buyersguides/food/breakfastcereal.aspx

4,- Find support and/or alliances from organizations alike to scale and replicate the experience and achieve really social changes..... (because of if most of the companies ¨care about us¨, we will be in a ¨social environment that really care about us¨, but if we do not care to who do we buy, we are not really taking care of the society..¨.